Maurice Roëves gave hard men and military figures a directness that made them convincing, but those roles could narrow our sense of him. We value his dependable supporting work; Tutti Frutti gives a fuller reason to pay attention.
Fi1m perspective
As Colonel Munro in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Maurice Roëves is in familiar territory: a military figure played with the directness that made him a dependable supporting actor. We rate that lack of fuss, though there was more to him than these parts suggest. Michael Mann's film gets its heroic conviction from Daniel Day-Lewis, with Roëves in dependable support. We were stirred by the action and music, even when the dialogue sounded less certain of its period. It is a strong introduction to his supporting work, and an evening we readily recommend.
His breakthrough as Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses (1967) points beyond that familiar hard-man casting. Across six decades of British and American film and television, supporting parts became much of his work. John Byrne's Tutti Frutti (1987) gave him a central role as Vincent Diver, an explosive, ageing rocker. The attraction is the chance to see his spiky energy sustained in a leading part. It is the performance to put beside Colonel Munro before deciding what sort of actor Roëves was.
His later supporting work includes Jimmy Gordon in The Damned United (2009) and Menteith in Justin Kurzel's Macbeth (2015). We recommend Macbeth chiefly for Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, who make ambition feel painfully entangled with grief. The blood and mist can become oppressive, while the verse needs more room to breathe. It is worth seeing with those reservations, though it would not be our first choice for someone looking specifically for Roëves.
The reservation is chiefly the casting: tough men and villains recur enough to make the work seem narrower than it was. We value his directness, but would not pretend that another stern supporting role necessarily tells us anything new about him. For a second evening, turn to Tutti Frutti and give the military men a rest.
Biography
Maurice Roëves was a British actor. Born John Maurice Roëves in Sunderland in 1937, he moved to Glasgow at the age of six and trained at the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art, where he won a gold medal for acting. He began his career on stage at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
Roëves appeared in over 120 film and television roles. His breakthrough screen performance was as Stephen Dedalus in the 1967 film Ulysses. He played Colonel Munro in The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Warden Miller in Judge Dredd (1995). Other notable credits include Escape to Victory (1981), The Damned United (2009) and television appearances in Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Tutti Frutti (1987) and EastEnders (2003). He died in Edinburgh in 2020.
